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Show Man Towns Use Refuse to Create Beauty Spots Until last year the Smith town, N. Y., town dump was a smoky, fuming, rat-breeding horror; then a transformation began, and soon it will be officially opened as a recreation area, with rolling lawns, playgrounds, flowers and shrubs. The cost: a little more than a dollar apiece for each of Smithtown's 40,000 citizens. In Seattle, 70 acres of swampland have been converted into a parking lot and athletic field for the University of Washington. A similar waste area in Elmhurst, 111., is being changed into tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and rolling mounds for winter sledding. The foundation in each of these transformaations, reported in the December Reader's Digest, is "sanitary landfill" a new method of refuse disposal that benefits everyone. All that is needed is "a bulldozer, a hole in the ground and good planning." According to public works officials, 60 per cent of U. S. towns, and cities have serious disposal problems. Refuse from a town of 50,000 will fill five acres of land 15 feet deep every year. Spread flat with a bulldozer and covered with two feet of earth often available from highway builders and others in construction fields it can be built up into usable, beautiful land. Los Angeles is filling in an entire canyon with its trash. It expects to have baseball diamonds, tennis courts and other facilities for use in six years. Niagara Falls, N. Y., is filling an abandoned mile long canal which once served a hydroelectric station. i Not only does the method turn bad land into good, but it can be used right in the heart of town, saving the expense of hauling refuse to the outskirts. To dispel the fears of citizens reluctant to approve such downtown dumping, Birmingham, Ala., and Westport, Conn., held public tea parties smack on top of the reclaimed land. nOn |